Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur talking about Solar Power

One of my all time favorite classics scenes from the movie, “You Can’t Take it With You”.

In which Jimmy and Jean talk about the paradigm of fear and passion, Banking and finance, commitment and duty, The Sun, plants and Solar Power, the secret to happiness, and falling in love. All in the space of five minutes with no cuts or edits.

They just don’t make ‘em like this anymore!

Entering Global Consciousness – Marti Spiegelman

Marti does a wonderful presentation about entering the conversation of Pacha (world) through thriving, connecting and being within and without… our job is to become portals for the stream of consciousness or intelligence…

Marti Spiegelman, MFA is a training professional, mentor, speaker, and founder and host of Awakening Value™: Shamanic Technologies of Consciousness and Success on the VoiceAmerica™ Web Radio Network.

TEDxBerkeley 2011 – Engaging the World – took place on Saturday, February 19th, 2011 at UC Berkeley. Nearly 1400 attendees and 200,000 live-stream viewers enjoyed the day.

Social Capital Investor Conference

Mapping the Social Investing Space: Failure and Criticism
Join a candid discussion from the frontlines of managing social change as Kate Cochran, and Premal Shah, President of Kiva, speak with Jonathan C. Lewis, Founder of MicroCredit Enterprises and the Opportunity Collaboration, on how social enterprises have weathered the “negative publicity” storms originating from SKS, Unitus, Kiva, Compartamos and Shorebank. How does negative blowback affect the social investment climate? What are learned lessons, what can we do differently and what does it mean for the future of social capital?

Premal Shah, Kiva. Kate Cochran, Unitus. Jan Piercy, ShoreBank International Ltd. (SBI). Jonathan Lewis, MicroCredit Enterprises

SOCAP 2010 – Overview

Investing in women making a change while embracing tradition – Kavita Ramdas

Investing in women can unlock infinite potential around the globe. But how can women walk the line between Western-style empowerment and traditional culture? Kavita Ramdas of the Global Fund for Women talks about three encounters with powerful women who fight to make the world better — while preserving the traditions that sustain them.

Kavita Ramdas is president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, a publicly supported grantmaking foundation that advances human rights by investing in women-led organizations worldwide. Over the past 22 years, the Global Fund has provided more than 7,000 grants, reaching more than 3,000 groups. Since Ramdas took the reins, the fund’s assets have more than tripled — and so has the number of countries the group works in, now at 170.

The Global Fund for Women contributes to groups that improve women’s economic security, work to end gender-based violence, increase access to education at all stages of life, provide critical health services and encourage women to take leadership roles in the public sector. In interviews, Ramdas has said that grantmakers can learn as much from applicants as applicants do from them. This is a philosophy she employs at Global Fund, where grants are often given with as few strings attached as possible, and proposals are accepted in any language. Her vision stands to change the game, not only in women’s rights but in philanthropy as a whole.

“Being a philanthropist doesn’t mean necessarily writing a huge check. It can mean mobilizing your community to start asking questions.”
-Kavita Ramdas

Investing in a better world – Geoff Mulgan

As we reboot the world’s economy, Geoff Mulgan poses a question: Instead of sending bailout money to doomed old industries, why not use stimulus funds to bootstrap some new, socially responsible companies — and make the world a little bit better?

Geoff Mulgan is director of the Young Foundation, a center for social innovation, social enterprise and public policy with a 50-year history of creating new organisations and pioneering ideas in fields as varied as aging, education, healthcare and poverty reduction.

Before the Young Foundation, Geoff Mulgan has held various roles in the UK government including director of the Government’s Strategy Unit and head of policy in the Prime Minister’s office, and he was the founder of the think-tank Demos. He is chairing a Carnegie Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society in the UK and Ireland. His most recent book is The Art of Public Strategy: Mobilising Power and Knowledge for the Common Good.